


olive branch

by astralcities



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Families of Choice, Fluff and Angst, Forgiveness, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 21:23:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14839424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astralcities/pseuds/astralcities
Summary: Angus gets a new home. Taako has a change in clothes. Lucretia finds forgiveness from the person she expects it least.Or, in other words, Taako receives a package he’s more than reluctant to accept.





	olive branch

Candlenights approaches quicker than what seems normal, and while he isn’t as in need of the season’s generosity as he used to be, so many years ago with Lup, he isn’t complaining. It’s for family, which _ugh, gross_ , he reluctantly admits over a glass of wine with Barry that he’s glad to have. It’s for forgiveness, too. Although the brief nod he gives Lucretia from across the room is about as much of that as he can muster, he appreciates that part of the holiday even so. After all: they, him especially, have a lot to be forgiven for.

It’s also a time for gifts, and while they all receive trinkets and carefully checked cooking from him, Angus gets the best present Taako can give: his full-time company. Which is to say, as Taako explains through a series of backtracking and tangential stammered explanations, he intends on adopting him. Legally.

“Fuck, isn’t that crazy?” Lup had joked, arm slung around his shoulders right where it belongs. “ _My_  brother, doing something legal. Yuck-a-rooney.”

They’re in the midst of moving in Angus’s things, though there’s pitifully few (the kid practically lived here before, anyway) when Magnus lifts a box the kid doesn’t recognize out of the pile. He traces a thumb against the tiny lettering and shrugs. “For you,” he says, and tosses the box to Taako.

It’s large but lightweight, about the size of his torso, and Taako snatches it out of the air with ease. He doesn’t remember ordering spell-casting supplies, nor does his private address receive fanmail. Really, the only people who should know of this place are those who occupy their little street.

He drops the package onto the kitchen table, where it lays forgotten for the afternoon.

When Magnus and company are passed out in their living room, and Angus is upstairs in his new bedroom, the package catches his eye again. “Toss me the scissors, Krav?” Taako requests, turning it over carefully in his hands. If he’s just forgotten about ordering material spell components, then it’s best to handle this with caution. Evocation magic isn’t the only type to cause things to burst into flames.

“I imagine that isn’t the brightest idea,” Kravitz says, handing over the tool.

Taako waves a flippant hand, and cuts open the heavy paper shell with nimble hands. There’s an odd sort of anticipation in it, though he’s not a child waiting for a Candlenights gift anymore. When a corner of the paper peels away, a slice of bright red fabric peers through.

He pauses, and Kravitz takes initiative, warm hands guiding him as Taako opens it further and further, until it reveals a red jacket with an embroidered patch is sitting neatly on a heavy red cloak, both in a nest of paper.

Taako doesn’t reach for the two articles at first, his hands moving almost of their own volition to tear through its wrapping until he finds the label Magnus spotted, his name detailed in neatly inked minuscule letters. He knows this handwriting, has seen it a thousand times over the course of a century and beyond.

“She must have kept them,” he says, struggling to keep his voice even. “I thought she’d have tossed all that old shit out.” He moves to brush the edge of the cloak, and when he pulls back, expects his fingers to come away coated in dust. They don’t— the cloth has been cleaned and ironed, and the fact stings him inside.

Kravitz, who has seen the broadcast, and even if he hadn’t, has heard their stories, places a knowing hand on his shoulder. Some of the tension building inside him leeches away at the movement alone. “An olive branch,” Kravitz remarks, and Taako has to stop the anger festering in his chest from bursting out at his boyfriend.

“I don’t want her fucking peace offering,” he hisses, though his hand is tight around the swath of red fabric. “This is mine, and I should’ve had it back anyway, and actually, _fuck_  that, it should never have been _taken,_  and—“

The pained look Kravitz levels at him is enough to stop his tangent before it really begins, and he quiets, letting Kravitz rub gentle circles into his back.

“You should forgive her,” he murmurs eventually, and Taako bites down on his lip to prevent an outburst.

“Don’t have to,” Taako snaps, and knows he’s being petulant. Fuck, he’d expect better behavior from the child sleeping upstairs. Kravitz seems to ignore the hurt and utter childishness in the words, and draws his fingers along Taako’s back at a soothing pace. It makes him want to drop the conversation here, and drown in the comfort his boyfriend is so insistent on providing.

“I think,” Kravitz says slowly, caution trimming his honeyed voice. “There are too many bad memories associated with these.”

“So?”

“So we make new ones.”

And with that, Kravitz plucks the scissors from where they lay abandoned on their kitchen table and goes to work on the red cloak.

They stay awake all night, tracing clumsy patterns onto the robe, cutting and stitching shaped into the early hours of the morning. The work is done with fervor, and they only break so Kravitz can put on a new pot of coffee while Taako peeks upstairs to check on Angus (not even a return of the Hunger could wake Magnus now). Though he’s sure there’s a spell somewhere that aids sewing disasters such as them, there’s something about laying the pieces out themselves, about struggling to sew on a ribbon of glitter to the hem of their new creation, about laughing when Kravitz leaves for a moment, only to return with a package of red sequins, that is utterly _enchanting_.

They’re making a new memory.

By the time morning rolls around, they have a clumsily made red skirt with enough glitter that Kravitz proclaims he’ll be able to spot him from the Astral Plane, and an extra strip of red cloak fashioned into a scarf that now hangs from Kravitz’s neck. The jacket is for the most part, unchanged, though the insulation has been torn out to allow for more space for sequins.

Lucretia stops by later that day, bearing some sort of housewarming present for Angus, who looks thrilled to see her. When they’re done exchanging greetings, she meets Taako’s gaze and stares with an expression he can’t quite place. Her eyes are bright, and though he’ll never admit it, he feels oddly proud.

Maybe this ‘forgiving’ thing isn’t so bad.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!! comments, even Fuckin Keysmashes, make my day!!! constructive criticism is also accepted. love you guys!


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